Twelve Days of Christmas

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘Good morning! I heard you moving about down here, so I hoped you wouldn’t mind my coming down for a cup of coffee? I’m a bit of an addict — and something smells delicious!’ he added, sniffing the air appreciatively.

  ‘Spiced biscuits for the tree,’ I explained. ‘Would you like cereal or a full cooked breakfast?’

  ‘Well, bacon and eggs and toast would be perfect — but I could do it if you’re busy?’

  ‘No, that’s fine, this is the last batch of biscuits. No-one else seemed awake, so I thought I’d get them done, because I promised Jess — that’s Jude’s niece — that we could ice them together this morning,’ I said, touched by his thoughtfulness. ‘But there’s a cafetière over there and coffee in the cupboard above it, so you could make us both some while I’m cooking?’

  We chatted while he was eating his breakfast and I was washing up those things I’d used for the biscuits that wouldn’t go in the dishwasher, like the old metal pastry cutters shaped like Christmas trees, bells, stars and all kinds of other things. I told him how I did cooking and house-sitting for a living and in return he confessed, with a modest air, that he was an actor.

  ‘Oh really? I expect you’re terribly distinguished and I should have recognised you, only I rarely have time to watch TV or go to the cinema.’

  ‘Not really famous — I’m mostly stage, except that I had a part in a film last year and made a bit of a success of it — The Darkling Hours. Sort of Harry Potter crossed with Tolkien and a dash of C.S. Lewis, but it went down well and I’ve had a few high-profile cameo roles since.’

  ‘Oh yes, that was a huge success! I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard about it. You were in that?’ I was impressed.

  ‘It certainly put me on the radar.’ He smiled rather sadly. ‘But while we were filming, my wife had an affair with one of the other actors and we’ve broken up.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘We had. . irreconcilable differences. The marriage hadn’t really been working out. Debbie’s taken our little girl, Rosie, to spend Christmas with her parents in Liverpool, so I called in to visit her and take some presents on the way up to stay with my Yorkshire friends. But after that, taking the SatNav’s short cut led to my downfall.’

  ‘Well, it could be worse — at least you saw your little girl before you got stuck. How old is she?’

  ‘Two — and I think she’s already forgetting me,’ he said sadly. ‘At first Debbie said she’d rather I didn’t see her at all, but I want to stay in her life if I possibly can and I think we can stay friends if we work at it, for Rosie’s sake.’

  ‘Yes, of course you do and I’m sure Debbie will come round.’

  He smiled at me. ‘I do feel better for talking it through, so getting myself stuck in the snow has had one good result! But my friends are going to be wondering what on earth has happened to me. I tried ringing them from my car last night, but they were out and I had to leave a message. And this morning I can’t get a signal at all!’

  ‘No, the phone reception here is lousy. You either have to walk down the drive just past the lodge or up the hill behind the house, before you can get a signal.’

  ‘It doesn’t really look like hiking weather out there, does it?’ he said, glancing out at the winter wonderland. ‘I wonder if it would be all right if I made a brief call from the house phone?’

  ‘I expect it would have been, only the poles have come down, so that isn’t working either, though there is a call box in the village, about half a mile away.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s that. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get off a bit later today anyway, if it’s stopped snowing and they clear the roads.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s been more snow since last night, but it’s a bit hard to tell, because it’s drifted and there’s been a freeze overnight — it’s all crunchy underfoot.’

  ‘It’ll probably thaw out once the sun comes up properly,’ he suggested optimistically.

  ‘A local farmer snowploughs the drive and the road to the village with his tractor, so he’ll be up later this morning and can tell us what it’s like out there,’ I told him. ‘If it’s passable, then I should think Jude’s brother and his girlfriend will be leaving too, so they could probably give you a lift down to your car. Or I could, because I’ll be leaving myself, though I’ll probably have to dig my car out. I hope it starts: I haven’t moved it for days.’

  He looked up, surprised. ‘But — I was a bit too out of it last night, so I might have misunderstood — but aren’t you here to look after the house and do the cooking for Jude’s elderly relatives?’

  ‘No, actually this was only supposed to be one of my house-sitting jobs, to look after the empty house and the animals over Christmas.’

  I’d made some fresh coffee and now sat down with him while he ate toast and marmalade, and explained what had happened. And as I was talking, I began to see everything that had led to this moment as a series of unfortunate events, a bit like the Lemony Snicket film, and actually some of it was quite funny. In fact, by the time Guy walked in on us, we were getting along as if we’d known each other for years.

  He looked taken aback to see a stranger there and instantly demanded, ‘Who the hell is this?’

  Coco drifted half-awake through the door after him, ethereally pretty in a diaphanous pink dressing gown and no makeup. Then she too spotted the visitor and jerked wide-awake, exclaiming, ‘Michael — darling!’

  He put down his cup hastily and got up. ‘Er. . Carla?’ he ventured uncertainly.

  She threw herself at him like a rose-tinted flying squirrel and kissed him with a mwah! mwah! noise on both cheeks. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages! You remember me, don’t you — Coco Lanyon?’

  ‘Of course,’ he assured her, though I deduced from his expression that he didn’t. But he was an actor, so he returned the embrace, told her how wonderful she looked, and asked her what she was doing just now, and she told him about her Morning Dawn Facial Elixir TV advert.

  ‘This is Michael Whiston, he’s a well-known actor,’ I explained to Guy while all this luvviness was taking place.

  He helped himself to coffee. ‘A friend of yours?’

  ‘No, I never met him before last night. He took a wrong turn when his SatNav told him to and—’

  I broke off because Noël, in dressing gown and slippers, and Becca and Jess, who were dressed for mucking out, arrived to find the stranger in their midst and general introductions and explanations ensued.

  ‘Michael and Jude arrived late last night, when I was switching on the generator — the electricity went off and the automatic switchover didn’t happen,’ I explained succinctly.

  ‘You mean, Jude is here?’ Guy demanded, getting straight to the crux of the matter.

  Coco went white — though actually she was pretty pale to start with, a translucent Nordic fairness. ‘Oh God, he’s not, is he?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Horlicks,’ Jess said. ‘I’m glad Uncle Jude’s here! Do you think he’s brought me a present, Holly? Can I go and wake him up?’

  ‘The poor boy must have jet lag, to have got here so quickly,’ Noël suggested. ‘Let him sleep.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he’s fine,’ I said heartlessly, ‘you can wake him in a minute, Jess. But first, could you take this tray up to your granny?’

  I’d been buttering toast and soft-boiling an egg while all the explanations were going on and now I added a little pot of tea to the tray. ‘There. If you take that, I can get on with everyone else’s breakfast.’

  ‘But Guy — Jude is here!’ Coco wailed, looking terrified. ‘What are we going to do? Oh, I wish I’d never come.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ muttered Becca.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he’ll throw me out into the cold, cold snow — not his baby brother,’ Guy said easily. ‘I can’t guarantee he won’t throw you out though, Coco.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, no-one will be leaving until the roads have been cleared,’ I said.

 
‘And of course Jude won’t throw you out anyway, m’dear,’ Noël reassured her.

  ‘Now, does everyone want a cooked breakfast?’ I asked briskly.

  Coco shuddered even more. ‘An omelette made with egg whites for me,’ she ordered. ‘Black coffee.’

  ‘You could put the kettle on and make a fresh pot,’ I suggested. ‘And there are lots of eggs if you want to do your own thing. I’m cooking fried eggs, grilled bacon, tomatoes and toast.’

  ‘And very good it was too,’ Michael said, giving me a warm smile and seeming not to notice that Coco was looking outraged. ‘I’ll make the fresh coffee. Since I’m the unexpected visitor I’d like to make myself useful and you wouldn’t let me cook.’

  ‘Well, Noël and I are useless in the kitchen, so we’ll just keep out of the way,’ Becca said.

  But to my surprise Guy also made himself useful by buttering the toast, while I fried the eggs and grilled bacon and halved tomatoes brushed with olive oil.

  Jess returned, reporting that Jude was now getting up. ‘He won’t say if he’s brought me a present, so he probably has. And I told Granny about Jude being home and she’s pleased too,’ she announced. ‘She said she expected he would send you packing, Horlicks, and Guy would have to drive you back in his car, so we could get rid of both of you and have a lovely Christmas.’

  ‘You horrible child,’ Guy said dispassionately and then pulled ghastly faces at her until she giggled. Suddenly, despite not wanting to in the least, I found myself liking him a bit, despite his being so horrid to Coco.

  ‘Are those biscuits for the Christmas tree?’ Jess asked, spotting them cooling on the rack. ‘When did you make them?’

  ‘Early this morning, while most of you were still asleep. I thought we could ice them later, and put ribbon through ready to hang them on the tree. We’ve got icing sugar and I brought natural food colourings with me.’

  ‘Oh, great.’ She slid onto a chair next to Noël and helped herself to toast and jam. ‘Horlicks, you shouldn’t play with your food,’ she said severely.

  Coco, who had taken a fried egg and was engaged in cutting out the yolk, looked at her with disfavour. ‘I don’t know why you keep calling me that, but I wish you’d stop!’

  ‘Yes, it’s very rude,’ said Becca, but without any great conviction.

  Coco ate one mouthful of egg white and then pushed the plate away, though since she had the look of one who retired to sick up her meals immediately after eating them, it probably saved time. Or maybe she was just naturally all bones and angles?

  ‘I need a ciggy.’

  ‘Well, you’re not smoking it in my house,’ Jude’s deep voice said from behind her and the huge kitchen seemed to shrink with his entrance. Guy paled slightly for all his bravado and Coco looked frankly petrified.

  ‘Oh, look, it’s the Brother Grimm,’ I said involuntarily, looking at his set jaw — though to be fair, with one like that it would be hard for him to look soft and pleasant. And I can’t imagine why these kind of remarks keep slipping out when he’s there, because normally I keep a firm rein on my rebellious tongue with clients!

  ‘Good morning to you, too,’ he said to me sarcastically, then took his place in the large wheelback chair at the head of the table as if it was his by right — which, come to think of it, it was. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any breakfast left?’

  ‘Yes, of course, I did extra bacon when I knew you were getting up and I’ll fry you a fresh egg. Guy, would you stick a bit more toast in?’

  ‘We seem to have quite the extended family party, don’t we?’ Jude said, looking round the table. ‘Odd, I don’t remember inviting any of you — though Noël, Tilda and Becca are always welcome, of course.’

  ‘And me,’ said Jess.

  ‘Not when you wake me up at the crack of dawn by hitting me with a pillow,’ he said gravely. Then he raised an eyebrow at Coco and Guy. ‘Congratulations! I saw the notice in The Times. When’s the wedding?’

  ‘There isn’t a wedding, or even a proper engagement,’ Guy said. ‘Coco was jumping the gun.’ He picked up his piece of toast and added, nonchalantly, ‘Come to think of it, there wasn’t even a gun — I’ve been trying to get rid of her for weeks.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ Coco exclaimed. ‘Everything was fine! I can’t think what’s got into you suddenly, Guy!’

  ‘Sanity?’

  ‘He’s fickle, m’dear — takes after his Uncle Ned,’ explained Noël kindly, which was definitely not the sort of thing I wanted to hear about Ned Martland just then!

  ‘Was Ned Martland really fickle?’ I couldn’t resist asking Noël.

  ‘Yes, m’dear, but he genuinely fell in love with them. Heart soft as butter — but he couldn’t marry ’em all, could he?’

  ‘There you are, Coco,’ Guy said easily. ‘I can’t help it, it’s in my genes. I’m moving on to the next woman already.’ He blew me a kiss.

  ‘Oh, rubbish,’ she snapped, then with an effort she rallied, got up and kissed Jude’s unresponsive (and unshaven) cheek, twining her arms girlishly around his neck. ‘Jude, darling, Guy and I had a misunderstanding and he’s still cross, so that’s why he’s being silly, but I know you’ll be happy for us, about the engagement.’

  ‘There is no us, I kept trying to tell you,’ Guy interrupted. ‘Sending an engagement notice to The Times without telling me doesn’t actually constitute one.’

  Coco burst into tears. ‘You are so cruel to me!’ she sobbed. Looking around for sympathy she did the flying squirrel thing at Michael again. ‘Please take me away from these horrible people — this terrible, terrible place!’

  ‘That’s an awful line and you used it with me last Christmas,’ Guy remarked critically, ‘right after Jude found us together. And you’re never going to make it as an actress because the delivery was terrible.’

  Coco’s sobs began to verge on the hysterical and Michael patted her gingerly, while making a face at me over her head.

  ‘Poor child,’ Noël said. ‘I really don’t think you’ve treated her well, Guy.’

  ‘Oh, just fill the big jug with cold water and throw it on her,’ suggested Becca, which was probably also something they had taught her at finishing school.

  Coco hastily removed herself from Michael’s shoulder, to his evident relief, and, declaring that she was going to dress and pack, flounced out of the room. I supposed I ought to do the same really — the packing bit, not the flouncing — though the thought was not terribly inviting. But then, neither was the idea of spending Christmas under the same roof as Jude Martland.

  Noël rose from his chair, saying to Jude, ‘Glad to have you back, my boy. I’ll go and see if Tilda is getting up.’

  ‘How is she doing?’

  ‘Almost herself again,’ he assured him. ‘You’ll see for yourself, shortly.’

  ‘It was kind of you to rescue me,’ Michael told Jude, ‘but I hope to leave later too, just as soon as we know the roads have been cleared. Perhaps you can give me a lift down to my car?’ he suggested to Guy. ‘Or Holly says I might be able to get the local farmer to take me on his tractor?’

  ‘Yes, George Froggat, who has the farm up the lane, will clear the road and our drive some time this morning, and he’ll tell us what the road’s like. I’d certainly love to see Guy and Coco on their way, and I expect you’re keen to get off as well, but I can’t very well turn you all out if it’s impassable,’ Jude said, though he looked as if he’d like to.

  ‘Glad to hear it, though a couple more days of Coco’s hysterics and we might change our minds about turning her out into the snow,’ Guy said. ‘But I’m prepared to pay George good money to take her away, so all is not yet lost. In fact, I’ll take my coffee into the sitting room and watch out for him.’

  ‘So long as he takes you away, too,’ Jude called after him.

  ‘You wouldn’t throw your little brother out into the cold, cold snow, would you?’ Guy said plaintively, turning in the doorway and clutching a melodramatic hand to
his chest.

  ‘Yes, I would,’ Jude said uncompromisingly. ‘And Coco’s your responsibility now, so it’s up to you to see she gets home safely.’

  ‘There’s a good fire in the sitting room, if you would like to go through with Guy,’ I suggested to Michael.

  ‘And it’s time we saw to the horses, Jess,’ Becca said. ‘It’s getting late.’

  ‘Oh, but I’m going to ice the biscuits with Holly!’ she protested.

  ‘I need to clear up the kitchen and do one or two other things first,’ I told her. ‘We’ll do it when you come back in. And it’s so bitterly cold out there that I’m not sure they should go out today, even double-rugged.’

  ‘So, who made you an equine expert suddenly?’ Jude said rudely.

  ‘Oh, you only have to explain something to Holly once, and she’s got it,’ Becca said. ‘But the horses can probably go out for a couple of hours. They’ve got the field shelter.’

  When they went out Jude got up too, narrowly missing his head on the lamp that hung over the table.

  ‘Could we have a word?’ I asked.

  ‘Later. I want to have a look at Lady in the daylight myself without her rug, and make sure she hasn’t lost any condition. And check on the generator — which, by the way, you needn’t go near now I’m back. After that I’ll be in my room next to the library, catching up with the mail.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Later!’ he snapped again and went out before I could point out that there probably wasn’t going to be any post for a while and also that, if he meant his email, the phone was off, making a dial-up connection impossible.

  And before I could mention my urgent desire to remove myself from under his roof.